Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Wednesday 24th October 2018. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through EV story today so you don’t have to.

Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.

A quick hello to everyone at the Battery Technology Show happening yesterday and today at ExCel in London. Our friends Moixa were there too, I do recommend you check them out for solar and storage.

And the long-awaited Tesla Model 3 key fob is finally making its way to owners in the early access program, for those who can’t bear using their phone or the credit card key.

CAN ANYONE KEEP TRACK OF TESLA REFERRAL SCHEME OFFERS?

Referral codes. Strange things, if you’re a Tesla owner then why not get some benefits.

Well the benefits keep on changing. Now, if you buy a Model 3 with a referral code, you get 6 months free unlimited supercharging and not $100 of credit, which was updated last month. It even applies to the $45,000 Model 3, and it will be retro actively applied, back to September 19th, when the last scheme was introduced.

How do you feel if you paid $150,000 for a Model X and have to sit in the same Supercharger queue as someone who didn’t buy a premium car?

All these changes and backtracks do confuse me, and I follow this pretty closely. That lack of consistency smacks of them not knowing what they’re doing, and I’m sure that’s NOT the case.

Lurching from one financial story to the next, between them was a compelling car in the FF91 if they can ever make one. I always felt there was a bit of ‘me too’ about them, but I wish everyone luck. Last December the cash was gone, then $1bn investment, then another $2bn investment. Good times!

Today they said they would cut the pay of staff by 20% and make an unspecified number of layoffs, all in aid of reducing their ongoing cost of operation.

The Chief Executive, Jia Yueting, has agreed to a salary of $1 per year as well.

A statement said: “We are in the process of implementing plans to cut staff wages by 20 percent, hourly paid workers will also see a wage cut by 20 percent and this will take immediate effect in accordance with the law in California.”

Last year they posted a loss of $339.6 million, which by Tesla standards is not the worst, but the fortunes of both companies seem headed in opposite directions as Tesla edge ever closer to profit.

DYSON CONFIRMS SINGAPORE EV FACTORY

There was anger in the UK today one of our most influential innovators James Dyson has been a very loud voice in arguing for us to leave the European Union, and arguing for less European integration if favour of going it alone and inward investment.

Today he announced his electric car project was moving forward and they would be built in Singapore, which didn’t go down well with those who think he should walk his talk, and invest in the UK. The irony of course is that building cars, of all things, requires many thousands of parts all arriving at your factory at just the right time. If we put up borders with Europe where all the parts are made, and even delay lorries by half a day for border checks, car makers don’t want to start stockpiling parts. So the heartbreaking thing for the UK car industry is that it will be hit harder than most and relocating to Europe makes sense for the bottom line. Many of those places which voted for us to leave the EU will also be the hardest hit with job losses like this, the whole situation is still has so many unknowns.

If I put myself in his shoes, which will never happen as he’s worth something like £12 billion (!), he’s investing £200 million in research and development in the UK, has his own university training the next generation of engineers, and Asia will be a crucial market for his cars. Elon Musk says you need to build the cars close to your customers, hence a gigafactory on every continent. Plus Singapore has trade agreements with China.

Business Green says: “the move comes on the same day as a cross-party group of 42 Parliamentarians countersigned a letter from the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Neil Parish MP, calling on Chancellor Philip Hammond to use next week’s Budget to stimulate the uptake of electric vehicles. Separately, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), the AA, the RAC, and a host of green groups, including ClientEarth and Green Alliance, wrote to Hammond earlier this week to call for new tax incentives to encourage the adoption of EVs. Specifically the letters urge the Chancellor to bring forward the company car tax reduction to two per cent in April 2019, rather than maintaining the current plan to increase it to 16 per cent in 2019/20, before falling to two per cent in 2020/21.”

From one solid state fan to another – Fisker. The startup founded by Henrik Fisker is betting their future on solid state and now they’ve secured extra finance from Caterpillar – yes those who make heavy plant.

Whether we will see the 400 mile EMotion depends on the promised battery technology. The last we heard they could get 500 miles of charge from a 1 minute charge.

My concern is the commercialisation of the technology, and i don’t see that happening yet. Whereas for every Tesla Model 3, something like 4000 2170 cells make up the battery. And they’ve made 100,000 MOdel 3’s. That’s what i mean by scale.

UBER TO INTRODUCE CLEAN AIR FEE TO ALL LONDON RIDES

“Uber will charge its customers in London an extra 15p per mile on every trip to help its drivers buy electric cars.” reports The Guardian: “The ride-hailing app hopes to create a £200m fund from the levy to encourage almost half of its 45,000 drivers to use fully electric vehicles by 2021. The firm hopes its London fleet will be fully electric by 2025. Uber said the clean air fee would mean an extra 45p on the average three-mile trip in the capital, on top of normal fares, but every penny would go towards helping drivers upgrade their vehicles or other green initiatives should that money not be used. Under Uber’s new scheme, each driver will in effect have their own savings account towards the purchase of an electrical vehicle, based on the number of miles driven. A driver using Uber’s app for an average of 40 hours per week could expect to save about £3,000 towards a new electric vehicle in two years. Uber said it was in talks with manufacturers to negotiate prices and ensure supply, as well as to home vehicle charging suppliers.”

Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi said: “You’re going to see many initiatives but what it adds up to is us moving from being a simple ride-sharing service to transforming to an on-demand mobility service. We ultimately want to be that go-to mobility platform – whether you’re going to move with the car or a bike or ultimately a bus or the tube service. All this is aimed at eventually replacing car ownership itself. Cars are unused 95% of the time and take up enormous amounts of space, in parking etc – we want to give that space back to the city. It’s our goal to help people replace their car with their phone by offering a range of mobility options – whether cars, bikes, scooters or public transport – all in the Uber app.”

“Investment fund Sogepa will invest in Thunder Power Holdings’ project to build a factory and R&D centre for electric vehicles in Belgium, according to Shen Wei, CEO of the Hong Kong-based EV maker. Thunder Power will launch its first own-brand EV – a 2-door sedan – in Europe in 2020, Shen said. The factory will produce 10,000 EVs initially in 2020 and 30,000 units in 2021.” reports DigiTimes: “The 2-door sedan will have endurance running distance of about 350km. Thunder Power EV, Thunder Power’s subsidiary based in Guangzhou, China, is poise to begin EV production.”

Electrive says: “The electric city car will feature a 50 kWh capacity battery, allowing for a NEDC range of 300 km. It is priced between 12,000 and 15,000 euros.”

Ahhh if we could wave a magic wand you’d have batteries that were lightweight, were energy dense, lasted forever and charged quickly. But…physics. So enter stage left the Toshiba SCiB cells, they charge at ultra-fast speeds and last a long time, plus they work at extreme temps but are heavy.

Toshiba are increasing their investment in them though, building a second production plant in Yokohama, construction begins next year and it will be operational in 2020.

Toshiba said: “The SCiB delivers long life operation, rapid charging, high input and output power and a large effective capacity. It operates across a wide temperature range and is very safe. Since its introduction in 2008, its versatility and reliability have won the battery application in electric and hybrid electric vehicles, the drive systems of railroad cars, and energy storage systems in substations.”

AUSTRALIA GETS ELECTRIC IVEECO ACCO

The Aussie firm SEA Electric are manufacturers of EV powertrains and conversions for commercial vehicles, and now they’re introducing an all Australia EV truck based on the Iveco Acci,

It’s a battery pack 10 times the size of my Zoe, it’s 220kWh and the truck has 155 miles of range as a pure BEV when it has a full payload. This truck will be used for waste collection, so even the 65mph top speed seems a little unnecessary but that range will easily do their route.

We love you Australia, you still have mental politicians who want to burn coal because they claim wind and solar can’t keep the lights on. Which everyone knows is nonsense but fossil companies sure do have a lot of money don’t they. As long as EVs run on all the sun power you have down under it will be clean.

POLESTAR CUBE IS ICONIC DESIGN FOR THEIR HQ

May I introduce you to the new home of Polestar – the Polestar Cube. “The white glass façade looks like something Apple would build (if it didn’t have a flying saucer for its headquarters) and is but one part of a new complex in Gothenburg dedicated to Volvo’s new all-electric sub-brand. Aside from the windows, the only break in the smooth surface is for Polestar’s star-shaped logo, which is lit up in white.” report Motor1.com.

Thomas Ingenlath, Volvo’s design boss said: “Minimalistic, avant-garde design is at the core of the Polestar brand, in our cars and in the way that we interact with our customers. Design also plays a role in how we feel and cooperate in our workplace. With the new headquarters, we wanted to transform an existing structure to create a new, modern building on the Volvo Cars campus that expresses our brand values, and which becomes an inspiring and desirable place for our global team to work”

As per Electrive: “PSA has announced plans to electrify their entire utility vehicle palette by 2025. Starting in 2020, the Peugeot Expert and the Citroën Jumpy will be electrified, while the Citroën Berlingo Electric and Peugeot Partner Electric will receive larger batteries.”As mentioned, the Citroën Berlingo Electric and the Peugeot Partner Electric will be updated. They are currently both fitted with a 22.5 kWh battery, putting them significantly behind Renault’s Kangoo Z.E., which features a 33 kWh battery pack. In the next step, PSA will then electrify the larger Citroën Jumper and Peugeot Boxer, which is based on the Fiat Ducato. This may also motivate Fiat to electrify their vehicle, as well.”

And thanks to MYEV.com they’ve set us another Question Of The Week. Keep your comments coming in on email and YouTube…

Putting range aside, because everyone wants more range what do you feel is lacking in today’s EVs? Perhaps it’s design, options, a choice of models, a lack of education, cost or even social pressure? We would love to know what it really is that’s stopping people from switching.

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